How to waste money before the trip even starts

Have you ever wasted money when traveling, and just kicked yourself for it? Anyone who has traveled extensively, no matter how careful they are, has spent some serious cash when it wasn’t even warranted.

For budget travelers, it’s one of the most annoying and even devastating things that can happen.

There’s something worse, though: wasting a bunch of money before the trip even begins.

I did that before the two-week trip to Mexico that Masayo and I have been planning. This tragic tale proves that you can be too relaxed in your approach to travel. I hope you are more careful and aware than I was!

The night before we were to fly out from Florida, where we were visiting my dad, I got my papers in order and realized that I’d left my passport back in Georgia.

You can’t fly internationally without a passport.

Some frantic phone calls and emails were exchanged (curse Continental Airlines’ website and unhelpful help line), and I found that I was going to have to pay $150 extra per seat to change our tickets. Plus I’d have to pay my mother to overnight my passport here, immediately. Plus our hotel room in Mexico City, booked through Agoda.com, is non-refundable so I have to pay it all. Plus Agoda is taking an extra $15 just for the fun of it.

Plus, our trip will be two days shorter, and our ride to the airport won’t be available on our new departure day so we have to pay for a shuttle service.

All told, I am paying over $400 extra, all because I didn’t bother to make sure I had my passport until a few hours before the flight.

Everyone else in this tale came through for me, fortunately: my mom sent the passport to me through Federal Express; they delivered it very quickly, and everything was finally ready to go.

There’s something about having very little money that seems to spread. When you’re of lean means, your mind can get foggy and you make dumb mistakes that end up costing you more.

But why not try to make a positive out of a negative? Things could always be worse, and I mean that in an optimistic, not pessimistic way. We’ll have two fewer days in Mexico, but that’s two more days hanging out on the beach in Sarasota. I’ll miss the money, but at least the trip isn’t totally canceled.

How have you spent unnecessary money for traveling? How did you feel about it? I hope time removed the sting for you.

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